Based on numbers alone, you could look at Solange Knowles as this era's answer to La Toya Jackson (although even La Toya went Top 40 on the U.S. R&B singles chart a few times). She is the decidedly less successful sibling of a musical icon (Beyoncé, duh), although the desperation that tainted her earlier work (even her relatively respected sophomore album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams) has by now evaporated.

Unlike La Toya, Solange seems to figure that if you're going to be a flop, be a fantastic flop. "Losing You" is, a strong contender for the greatest thing she's recorded, a mixed-mood dirge that is based on a loop of wild yelping (like new jack swing used to do when it gently ripped off the Bomb Squad and also reminiscent of Matthew Dear's most recent album). The track turns serious once forlorn keyboards come in to damper the mood and Solange starts lamenting a relationship's imminent death, returning to the chorus over and over after just a few bars of verse, like she's chanting it into making sense.

Matthew Dear's fifth album under his own name, Beams, is a woozy rifling through preexisting…
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This is gorgeous, and so is its Prince-ly b-side "Sleep in the Park." The songs come by way of Terrible Records, run by Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor, which seems like it's giving Solange the freedom she needs to be great. A success across the board, even if it never charts anywhere.